what would you be doing today if you only had 37 days to live?

19 April 2008

Poets remind us of how it was - and how, in fact, it still is

One day our descendants will think it incredible that we paid
so much attention to things like the amount of melanin in our skin or the shape
of our eyes or our gender instead of the unique identities of each of us as
complex human beings. – Franklin Thomas

The Weakness

That time my grandmother dragged methrough the perfume aisles at Saks, she held me upby my arm, hissing, "Stand up,"through clenched teeth, her eyesbright as a dog'scornered in the light.She said it over and over,as if she were Jesus,and I were dead. She had beensolid as a tree,a fur around her neck, alight-skinned matron whose car was parked, who walked on swirlingmarble and passed throughbrass openings--in 1945.There was not even a blackelevator operator at Saks.The saleswoman had brought velvetleggings to lace me in, and cooed,as if in service of all grandmothers.My grandmother had smiled, but nothungrily, not like my motherwho hated them, but wanted to please,and they had smiled back, as ifthey were wearing wooden collars.When my legs gave out, my grandmother dragged me up and held me like Godholds saints by theroots of the hair. I begged herto believe I couldn't help it. Stumbling,her face whitewith sweat, she pushed me through the crowd, rushingaway from those eyesthat saw throughher clothes, underher skin, all the way downto the transparent genes confessing.

Poet Toi Derricotte has written, "My skin causes certain problems continuously, problems that open the issue of racism over and over like a wound." She wants her “work to be a
wedge into the world, as what is real and not what people want to
hear.” A self-dubbed "white-appearing Black person," she writes about passing and about forgetting.

Derricotte tells of her experiences as a light-skinned
African American woman able to "pass" as white throughout her life. When she asked a graduate school professor why they weren't reading any African American authors, "he said, 'We don't go
down that low.' Because I don't look black, he didn't know he was saying this to a black person."

What we do in service to skin color. What we do in service to skin color, gender, sexual orientation, physical ability, any kind of difference, really. What we do and must do are two different things. Us and them must become we. Really.

This poem especially moved me because the standard is so high for this black grandmother in a white store, as if her every move--and that of her granddaughter--is cause for judgment in a group of white seeking a confirmation that they were superior. Every African American person I've met, when asked about the messages they heard growing up, has said that they were urged to be better than, ever alert, always doing more, always striving toward over achievement to prove they could, not only for themselves, but for their entire race. It's a hard burden we place on young girls whose legs are tired in a store, their transparent genes confessing.

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as a woman in film (and not a blonde or "anglo" but instead, of questionable ethnicity)
I did what I am worst at, as the opportunity was available, and was told I was great at it,
(thinking all the while, wait till the opportunity to do what I am best at, then you'll see greatness)
in addition to my office duties (women are allowed to work in the office, of course) I took stills with the producer's camera, a Nikkon (i'm a Canon girl but can adapt)
the images of women in dept.s not traditionally held by women
depicted them working twice as hard with their male dept. counterparts at ease in the background...
this is how it always is when I photograph on set.
I have evidence of women busting their asses - working twice as hard for half the rate

some of us just live
our "mixed" families sometimes scrutinized
our identity questioned daily

we just keep on living and loving ourselves and our family members who are
every color a human can be

the only must for us is to re-mind
that race is a cultural construct
because, to look at me and my sister
you might categorize us as different races
but, we are sisters
aren't we?
so, don't we share the same race?
yes, the human race
there is
just one.

The irony, here, is that this huge gulf is, in reality, so narrow, so thin and tenuous, so reliant on the preconceived notion.

Once one makes contact with another, none of that silly stuff about color or gender or physical deformity matters one bit. Gone!

Yet, in the hands of the prejudging, the gulf might as well stretch across the continent...I know, as I was embarrassed to learn when I wanted to go with my grandmother to the pool when she was taking care of me and my siblings while visiting us from her home in Charlotte. As soon as she saw that it was not a segregated pool, she turned our little train around and refused to discuss the problem...or to go to the pool at any point during her visit.

It made it easier to understand my dad's issues, but not easier to forgive the sins of the father and his predecessors.